Bio:

Tomok is an orphan, having lost his father (a dockworker) to the sea, and his mother to a wasting, coughing illness.

At a young age, he fell in with a gang of local street kids. This was originally a comparatively innocent, if rough and violent, group that formed among young Orcs of about his own age for mutual protection against predatory strangers, dangerous vermin, criminals and other gangs, and occasionally some of their parents, especially during lean times.

The gang became know as the Boar Street Biters, and each of the members took “Biter” as his or her surname.By far the most bloody and intense battles were against a group of Elvish youths, the Heliotrope Toffs. Accustomed to making their way across the Orc district at will (mainly because it was the most direct route to the excellent rat-hunting along the banks of the 33rd West Quadrant Municipal Sewage Canal) they were not happy at the Biters’s interference in their affairs.

In the aftermath of a particularly nasty fight with the Toffs, the Biters came to the attention of Constable Karst, an officer of the Watch. Sent to investigate the increasingly violent situation, he witnessed the end and aftermath of the first battle.

Karst, a dwarf, was interested in the tactical skills and combat prowess of the Biters. He saw in them the potential for a force that could be used to increase public safety rather than imperil it, a chance to do some good in a community long short of it.

He reached out to the Biters, gradually overcoming their distrust by offering them good advice and asking little in return except that they be more mindful of their neighbours in their brawling. As he earned their respect and trust, he offered to teach those who wanted his training.

In Karst, Tomok found a mentor and a cause to believe in—extending his idea of who was a member of his community, and who was worthy of protection, beyond the gang to the district and even beyond it to the City itself.

But others in the gang did not share Karst and Tomok’s vision and had other, more lucrative plans for the future. They lured Tomok into an ambush. Badly hurt, Tomok was only saved by the arrival of Karst. The dwarf drove off the attackers at the cost of his own life.

Tomok has not forgotten his former friends, but more important to him then revenge was the promise he made to the dying Karst—to use his strength to protect his fellow citizens, to save who he could. Tomok felt that the best way to repay his blood debt was to join the Watch himself.

Tomok isn’t naive. He knows that the law in Vinchopolis is a rough instrument of oppression, not of justice. He knows that most of the Watch is corrupt, and the rest ineffectual. He uses the little power that being a Watchman gives him as his mentor did, to try to save those who can be saved, and to try to redirect talent, ambition and strength towards more worthy ends.

He enforces as few of the City’s soul-crushing, bureaucratic statutes as he can, while focusing on crimes on the street that hurt the weak, especially the young. He has no tolerance for organized crime and doesn’t take bribes. He hopes that one day he can bring the people who killed his mentor and his best friend to justice. He hopes to bring Karst’s plan to fruition. Until then, he serves and protects those he can, to the best of his ability, knowing that it is not yet enough.